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The Cleveland Guardians were the team that brought Junior Caminero to professional baseball.
But as Caminero rises into a superstar for the Tampa Bay Rays in MLB and the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, all the Guardians have been able to do is watch and wish things had turned out differently.
Yep, the Guardians once traded Caminero away.
That's not a moment that has aged well.
The Guardians signed Caminero as a teenager out of the Dominican Republic in 2019.
After the COVID year altered prospect development, Caminero starred in the Dominican Summer League in 2021 with a .534 slugging percentage.
The Guardians apparently didn't see enough out of him there. They traded him away before giving him any more shots to shine in the Cleveland organization.
In November 2021, Cleveland traded Caminero to the Tampa Bay Rays for Tobias Myers.
Myers at that point had put up a 3.90 ERA across Double-A and Triple-A in 2021 with strong strikeout numbers.
He didn't stick around long, either. The Guardians traded Myers to the San Francisco Giants for cash in July 2022, less than a year after the initial deal.
Myers wound up with the Brewers, where he showed some promise at the MLB level in 2024 but spent almost the entirety of 2025 back in Triple-A. He was sent to the Mets this offseason.
As for Caminero? He hit 45 home runs in 2025 for the Rays and just was a dominant for in the WBC.
He's just 22 and looks to be one of the best home run hitters in baseball.
Cleveland's lineup sure could use a guy like that.
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